The Moral Argument Is Just a God of the Gaps! | My Response

Zach Feature.

Thank you, Zach, for the question.

Zach Feature.

Is it Jack Reacher?

No, it's Zach Feature.

Is the argument for morality just another case of God of the gaps?

Okay.

Just because we cannot explain our innate sense of morality yet doesn't mean that an explanation will not be

discovered.

How would you respond to this line of reasoning?

Well, is the argument, the moral argument, the God of the gaps?

No.

God of the gaps refers to basically saying God did it when there is some kind of gap in

knowledge with regard to science or the natural world.

Okay.

So, in other words, because we don't have a natural explanation for something yet, then,

therefore, to appeal to God is to skip over whatever that natural explanation will be whenever it is

that we discover it.

Okay.

That's what people typically mean when they use the phrase God of the gaps.

This whole line of reasoning is silly.

The question, Zach, that you have to consider is why would you assume that there must be a

natural explanation for the grounding of objective morality?

Okay.

That question needs to be dealt with.

You've got to think about that question.

Right.

And when you press into a non -believer's response, you're probably going hear something like this.

Well, I start with the premise that the only things that exist are material.

Okay.

All right.

So, now, we're dealing with materialist presuppositions.

Okay.

Within that materialist framework, all of a sudden, God of the gaps sounds great and it makes a lot of sense.

I get it.

Okay.

This was actually my thought process when I was a non -believer.

All right.

I got saved when I was 30.

Okay.

So, I remember what it was like.

All right.

Except, wait a sec here.

Here's another question.

Why do you adhere to the materialist view?

All right.

Let's talk about that for a moment.

Because guess what?

For a lot of non -believers, they're probably going to say, well, you know what?

I'm a materialist because the evidence for it is all around me.

All right.

And there is no evidence for anything else other than what fits into the

materialist framework.

So, therefore, I'm a materialist.

Okay.

Great.

See, now, we're pressing further into details because now, we're starting to hear their

verificationism come out, right?

This is where you lean in and you kind of whisper, excuse me, but your verificationism is showing.

The verification principle is basically the idea that only those things that can be empirically

verified are the things that we should hold to or are meaningful.

Okay.

Matt Dillahunty appears to be someone like this.

Other atheists appear to adopt the verification principle as well.

But what just happened?

Okay.

This person started out with their framework a couple of steps too far ahead, in my opinion.

All right.

This is my response.

Okay.

They're materialists.

Why?

Because they're verificationists.

Okay.

But why are you a verificationist, though?

Do you have an answer to that?

Well, you know, because this is just where I begin.

This is my starting point for how I view the world.

And at some point, you have to work your way down to some brute facts, right?

Have you heard this before?

You have to work your way down to some brute facts.

And so, this is where I start with.

I start with my materialism and my verificationism.

Okay.

Fine.

But two things about that.

Number one, that's not where I start.

So, now, what do we do?

Okay.

As a Christian talking to a non -Christian, what do we do now?

Your starting point is not my starting point.

Christians don't start where you do as a non -believer.

So, how are you going to convince me that I must start where you started?

That's number one.

All right.

And number two, when you start out with materialism and verificationism, your worldview

cannot account for non -material entities, for non -material properties.

And so, then, humanity starts trying to wrestle with age -old questions, some of the oldest

questions out there, like morality.

Where does morality come from?

Right?

That's a huge discussion.

Okay.

That didn't just pop up a year ago, you know, two years ago under COVID.

No.

That's the age -old question, right?

But now, you, as the materialist, have created for yourself a gap.

I didn't do that.

Christians didn't do that.

You did that.

And you did so because of how you started out, because of your framework of viewing the world through your

particular lens.

Now, all of a sudden, there's all kinds of gaps from your perspective.

I don't have a gap.

All right?

Christians don't have a gap.

Because in the Christian worldview, the universe consists of two major categories, the physical and the non

-physical, the material and the immaterial, or the non -material, whatever.

And so, Christians they have a logical explanation for things like the laws of logic, for reason

and rationality, the properties of the mind, and even for objective morality.

Non -believers do not.

I mean, they try to have explanations.

Okay?

Some non -believers try to squeeze these non -physical categories

into the materialist framework, but it doesn't fit.

And that's why there are these gaps.